Oram Awards x Tŷ Cerdd x Llais

Oram Awards x Tŷ Cerdd x Llais Festival present

Oramic Waves

9–11 October 2026, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff

Bringing together Welsh, UK and international communities, the 2026 Oram Awards is proudly collaborating with Tŷ Cerdd across the Llais Festival programme and grassroot venue Paradise Garden during the weekend of 9-11 October.

Two organisations that passionately support women and gender-diverse artists exploring the expansive tides of sound come together to celebrate the unusual, the unique, and the unfiltered creative worlds we champion.

This year's selected winners will be celebrated as part of Oramic Waves, a partnership between the Oram Awards and Tŷ Cerdd, across Llais Festival and grassroots electronic music venue Paradise Garden in Cardiff from 9-11 October.

We invite you to join us and the 2026 winners to spend the weekend immersed in the Welsh experimental music scene, with socials, workshops and live performances open to the public across the three days. From socials, to workshops to live performances, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved and attend events under the Oramic Waves umbrella.

The 2026 Oram Award winners are May Swoon / Neo Ukandu (Wales), Rachel Devorah Rome (Northern Ireland), Semay Wu (Scotland), Outsider / Joni Newham (England) and eye measure / Ray Morrison (England).

Meet the 2026 Oram Award winners

Oramic Waves public events

About the Oram Awards

About Llais Festival

ORAMIC WAVES EVENTS

All events are only £5 each to attend.

These are smaller capacity events where booking is strongly recommended to avoid disappointment.

SATURDAY 10 OCTOBER, 13:00-16:00

Oramic Waves @ Llais Festival presents

Sample Pack Party with Natalie Roe

Rehearsal room 3, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff CF10 5AL

Workshop open to women and gender diverse artists of any level £5; TICKETS

Join 2023 Oram Award winning artist, Natalie Roe for a 3-hour explorative workshop aimed at introducing or developing participants' experience of using sampling in music. Throughout the session we will work to build a bank of noises and short clips of music created with the voice and electronic instruments. This will be a playful session in developing a sample pack together, which participants will then be able to take away and use to create with.

Outline of the session:

Welcome and intros
Short performance of modular synth and voice
Sharing of Natalie and the vocalist’s creative process
Demonstration of tech - particularly modular synth
Exploration time, attendees in groups, pairs or individually creating vocal and electronic sounds
Recording of samples throughout exploration time
Sharing of experience, sounds and final thoughts.

Natalie Roe is a composer, producer and electronic artist based between Cardiff and the West Midlands who combines acoustic and electronic sounds with other mediums in an array of multidisciplinary projects. She specialises in performing live electronic soundscapes with the modular synthesiser which she often uses to manipulate real world sounds.

SATURDAY 10 OCTOBER, 21:30-01:00

Oramic Waves @ Paradise Garden

Feat: Orams DJs, Warm Leveret, Outsider, Eye Measure

Paradise Garden, 213 City Road, Cardiff CF24 3JD

Live event, open to all; FREE admission

Celebrating women and gender-diverse voices of the experimental underground. With DJ sets and live performances from this year's Oram Award winners and Tŷ Cerdd artists.

Featuring:

Orams DJ: the people behind the scenes moving behind the decks to carry us between sets via multi-genre sonic expeditions.

Warm Leveret: Emma Daman Thomas makes electronic music in the hills of Radnorshire under the name Warm Leveret. The setup is restricted to voice, harp and birdsong. She samples and loops her voice, pushes her unpolished harp through fuzz and delay, building a songless and meditative sound world that she calls soft noise.

Outsider: 2026 Oram Award winner bringing you a DJ set traversing the worlds of queer club music and deep eclecticism.

eye measure: closing the night out is a live performance from another 2026 Oram Award winner. Expect weird, dark yet high energy computer music with live coding.

SUNDAY 11 OCTOBER, 13:00-17:00

Oramic Waves @Llais Festival presents

Oramic Waves social

Cabaret, Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff CF10 5AL

Social, food & live performances open to: all £5; TICKETS

A community event, in collaboration with the Oram Awards & Tŷ Cerdd, aimed at experimental and explorative artists, audience, and grassroots organisers alike, to connect, share experiences and enjoy some food and excellent music! Welcoming all kinds of ways to engage with community, there will be space to get fully involved in conversation and quiet space options away from the bustle and headphone listening stations set up around the space. The social and food (all diets catered for) will form the first part of the event, then we will move into performances from:

Rachel Devorah Rome & Pam Rose Cott

A first time live improvisation between two artists deep rooted in experimental practices.

AND

May Swoon / Neo Ukandu

Neo Ukandu is Wales' very own disabled experimental pop and indie-electronica maverick.

2026 Oram Award winner Rachel Devorah Rome is an electronic musician who values machines for their patience and capacity to remember. Interested in the parallels between the physical properties & social meanings of spaces. Rachel produces live collaborative improvised music with multi-genre artists.

Tŷ Cerdd artist Pam Rose Cott is a vocalist based in Cardiff her work exists mainly in the realms of spectacle, performance and improvised sound, now branching out into her first official release ‘Nosegay’ (a small posey of flowers carried by women in front of their face for protection from foul odours and disease). She performs in pursuit of rage, endurance, vulnerability and connection.

2026 Oram Award winner May Swoon / Neo Ukandu is the figurehead of two innovative projects, May Swoon and Friends Are Evul. Neo finds solace in messing with the DIY and unpredictable. Using noise, glitch effects, hardware samplers and self-created synth patches to create tracks. Neo is on a mission to share experimental electronic music creation with their disabled peers through release and resistance.

MEET THIS YEAR'S ORAM AWARDS WINNERS

May Swoon / Neo Ukandu (Wales)

Neo Ukandu is Wales' very own disabled experimental pop and indie-electronica maverick. The figurehead of two innovative projects, May Swoon and Friends Are Evul. Neo finds solace in messing with the DIY and unpredictable. Using noise, glitch effects, hardware samplers and self-created synth patches to create tracks. Neo is on a mission to share experimental electronic music creation with their disabled peers through release and resistance.

Rachel Devorah Rome (Northern Ireland)

Rachel Devorah Rome is an American improvising electronic musician, researcher, and educator based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Interested in superhuman prolongation; supramachine opacity; the re-signification of archaic tools and materials; and parallels between the physical properties & social meanings of spaces.

Semay Wu (Scotland)

Semay Wu is a Scotland-based composer, sound-artist, collaborator and cellist, prioritising free improvisation in electroacoustic, and often interdisciplinary perspectives. With a 30-year discipline behind her, Semay has worked with dance, art, theatre and poetry, and has composed video-pieces, audio-for-exhibitions, graphic scores as well as making an online audio cookbook for Manchester’s communities: Sounds Like Scran, in 2021.

Outsider / Joni Newham (East Midlands, England)

Focused on combining analogue dub techniques with advanced digital synthesis across production and live performance, Outsider bridges the worlds of queer club music and experimental electronics through a practice that also ventures into DJing, software development, visual design, writing, publishing, and label curation.

eye measure / Ray Morrison (Sheffield, England)

eye measure is the musical project of Sheffield-based artist Ray Morrison, who creates experimental computer music through live coding. Their work pushes simple structures towards density, intensity and unpredictability, leaving space for mistakes and unexpected results. Ray co-runs Pattern Club Sheffield, a workshop and event series exploring algorithmic patterns across a range of disciplines.

Hosted by Llais at the Wales Millennium Centre, there will be an internal celebration for the Oram Awards winners on Friday 9 October.

ABOUT THE ORAM AWARDS

The Oram Awards champion the unusual, the unique, and the unfiltered creative worlds of women and gender-diverse artists experimenting with sound, music and technology.

Born in 1925, Daphne Oram was a radical pioneer of electronics and sound, working in a male-dominated world that often undermined and overshadowed her success. She played a vital role in establishing women at the forefront of sound innovation not only in the UK but around the world.

The Oram Awards builds on Daphne Oram's legacy as a composer, engineer and founding director of the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Each round, they award 5 artists with a bursary and mentoring, shining light on their inquisitive practice, elevating their visibility and offering on-going support from the ever-expanding Orams community.

From live coding and expressive sound design to tape loop manipulation and electro-acoustic exploration, the artists recognised by the Orams embody the uncompromising, adventurous spirit of the awards' namesake.

ABOUT LLAIS FESTIVAL

Llais is curated as a week of extraordinary musical encounters - exclusive gigs, unexpected collaborations and artists rarely seen elsewhere in the UK.

Rooted in Wales’ identity as the Land of Song, the festival celebrates the power of voice in all its forms - from folk and gospel to experimental sound, orchestral performance, storytelling and immersive technology.

We are excited to bring the Welsh and international communities of the Oram Awards and Tŷ Cerdd together at Llais, to represent contemporary women and gender diverse creatives pioneering in sound.

The 2026 cohort of Oram winners and further Welsh creatives will feature across the Llais festival programme, taking shape through performances, community gatherings, workshops and more.

Expect the unexpected and be ready to be astounded. We look forward to unveiling more in the coming weeks.